It is early in 2016. The grass was green and the representatives mean. We had a goal to get a national survey into sexual assault and harassment to be done right and taken seriously. For too long had these issues had been either swept under the rug, or belittled. It was time to move and move hard.

As summer finally stretches into autumn, and the gaiety and festivities of the year’s opening fade behind us, it is with a certain despondence that the more sensitive members of our degree find themselves facing down the solemn days of mid-semester. The annual LMR Carnival and Garden Party, much the talk of the social establishment of law school high society, now lie in our past, and although the opening rounds of the upcoming competitions season promise a spirited (if more academic than bacchanalian) resurgence of excitement, the looming storm clouds of mid-term assignments and revision nevertheless cast long shadows over our present mood. Attendance at our torts lecture on the Monday morning of our third week of studies was therefore understandably characterized more by an aura of obligation than excitement. Although much effort has been made to impress upon us the rising importance of tortious claims of negligence in recent legal history, tort law nevertheless remains a thoroughly boring topic, despite the avuncular mannerism of our beloved Associate Professor Vranken, leading a valiant though ultimately doomed rear-guard action against the encroaching forces of narcolepsy. It was then an unexpected occurrence for our gathering to discover several members of our cohort making an appearance in the hall outside of their appointed lecture schedule.

This Thursday, the Graduate Student Association (GSA) proposes to reconstitute itself entirely. Last week, the President and Vice President promoted this change. The GSA Council proposes to replace its Constitution, arguing this is necessary to give the existing Council “more time” to campaign and “fight” the University, rather than dealing with administrative issues.

The role of the criminal law is generally understood as synonymous with the role of the criminal justice system. The process of passing through the criminal justice system has been well documented in literature and popular culture, from the police, to sentencing, to prison, and then beyond (or back again, as the case may be). In a system characterised by actors and practices ‘on the ground’, people lose sight of the criminal law’s wider ideological role in society. Put simply, the objective of the criminal justice system is the attribution of criminal responsibility. Most of the time, the attribution of criminal responsibility involves an attribution of moral responsibility too. For example, murder is both criminal and wrong. But what happens when the concepts of moral and criminal responsibility do not align? What happens when criminal justice processes (choices to arrest, prosecute, sentence) are required to attend to injustice, yet a crime has not been committed? It is in this context that the social justice movement takes the reins, and occasionally drops them. This is particularly the case in the context of the Aziz Ansari incident.